Autumn Rose felt the gods come back, Grandmother Ghost was pinching her and pinching her and the antelope/ deer was belling terror in her ear. She booted the skimmer up and went racing along the mountainside, rising at a steep angle, going for distance rather than altitude; she crossed the mountains, dropped again, putting those tons of stone and earth between her and the Compound, then she fled out out over the sea…
Miralys/Cillasheg
“Get out now, get out, get out, going to blow, get out,” Anyagyn sang into the speaker, her voice rising and falling in Dyslaer Warn.
Miralys watched the skimmer dart away, her Ciocan inside; as it vanished below the mountaintops, she brushed the back of her hand across her mouth, turned her attention to the Compound.
It rested on the ground like a gray clenched fist.
The fist cracked-leaked a blinding blue-white light-opened wide-spilled light like molten milkglass-filled the bay and flats-rolled up the mountainsides-boiled up and up into the clouds…
Specks of light lost in the great glow, the ganders fled from the expanding explosion.
##
“How many?”
Anyagyn smiled wearily. “Hannys got her tail singed, that’s all. Everyone’s tucked in and hitting the freshers.” She scratched at the fur between her ears. “Autumn Rose is on her way back, passengers intact, except Kikun who needs the ottodoc rather badly, she says. Once she’s docked, any reason we should hang around here?”
“No. Let’s go home. We’ve a business to whip into shape.”
Epilog
Digby wore a white linen suit imported out of the mists of memory and sat in an elaborate wicker chair with a soft white hat on his knee and the shimmer-glimmer of his bubble around him.
Rohant and Miralys came in; she was quieter than usual and dressed in mourning white, a long robe, cream colored velvet that complimented the fading bronze of her fur and moved elegantly with the vigorous shifts of her lean body. She looked around. Her ears twitched. “This is… different.”
He’d changed the decor of his meeting room to a deliberately exotic simplicity, recreating a room in a house where a family had lived for generations, perhaps a farm house, comfortable, but far from rich. The furniture had the feel of age and hard use, the fabrics were faded and frayed, the colors muted. There was a fireplace with logs burning in it and oil lamps spread their flickering amber glow in patches that left the corners dim where paintings and shelves of trinkets sprang into jewel clarity one moment and sank into shadows the next.
Digby smiled. “Nostalgia lives,” he said. “Hello, Rohant. It’s been a long time.”
“Digby.” Rohant bowed his head, then settled himself in a chair close to the fire and sat gazing into the flames. His robe was crisp and starched, snow white, cold white. He was withdrawn, physically present, mentally absent. The Dyslaer way of grieving was to sink into the minutia of mundane life as Miralys had, to grow excessively busy, exhausting themselves with work and planning. The Dyslaeror way was to create stillness within and without, to withdraw from the world and contemplate meanings-the meaning of particular deaths and generic DEATH, of particular lives and generic LIFE. Voallts Korlach had an estate in the Sarinim, a patch of gentle wilderness they kept to soothe their spirits when urban life became unbearably abrasive; Rohant was leaving tomorrow to spend his Mourning Year in a shrine Miralys had built there. His mind was already in retreat.
Miralys wandered restlessly about the room Digby had created for her, lifting objects, setting them down again. Over her shoulder, she said, “Who all’s coming?”
“Shadith, Kikun, Autumn Rose. They’ll be here any minute now.”
“Ah.”
##
Shadith came in, moving with a crackling energy and impatience, even her hair seemed about to explode from her head. She wore traveling gear and her harpcase was slung across her back. She dumped it on the floor beside a chair, flung herself down. “Well?”
Kikun unfaded, kicked a hassock over and sat beside her; he shared her impatience, sat with his orange eyes fixed on Digby as if by will alone he could bring this final conference to its end and be off about the matter that was troubling him now, the freeing of his homeland from its invaders.
Autumn Rose walked in a moment later, glanced quickly around and dropped into a chair beside the door, sat gazing at her hands. They had a newly pampered look, manicured, the skin creamed to a moist delicacy; her tunic was avrishum, a glowing dark blue-green with fine white piping, her trousers wide and flowing, more like a long skirt; she wore silver and takka-azul earrings, matching silver and takka-azul bracelets. Like Shadith, she was ready to go; she’d booked passage on a Gancha Worldship leaving the Transfer Station later today. Back on the Gamer Circuit. This is the last I’ll see of her for a while. Until she gets bored and is ready for a reality connection.
Digby contemplated his guests and thought they looked like the seeds on a ripe and ready pfeffri plant, primed to explode at a touch and scatter to the corners of the universe.
He crossed his legs, tented his hands. “This, my friends, is the denouement, where we tie off dangling ends and get on with our lives. Questions?”
Shadith scratched at her wrist. “Tinoopa. You said you’d take care of her.”
“Right. Tinoopa has been picked up and is on her way to her son, one Jao juhFeyn on Arumda’m.”
Rose leaned forward. “He’s all right, nothing went wrong for him, the Chom you know and Mimishay?”
“Rumors and tall tales, that’s all. He’s as prosperous as before. No trouble, Rose.
She relaxed. “I liked him. Was a good Game we played there.”
Shadith moved her shoulders. “Did Tinoopa give you any messages for me?”
“Yes. She says: Greetings to Kizra. That’s you? Right. She says: They’ve settled into peace at Ghanar Rinta after the last funeral. A very sad thing to see a man in the full flower of his vigor wither and die in less than three months. She says: Utilas sent his second son as guardian to the child; he seems a mild, intelligent youth with the wisdom to let the Matja run things.”
“Ah. Good.”
“You promised me the tale if I brought her out, Singer. I don’t have it yet.”
Shadith unzipped a pocket, took out a flake case and tossed it onto the table beside her. “You do now.”
“Thank you. Questions?”
Miralys glanced at Rohant, then stared down at her hands; she smoothed the back of a claw along the velvet of her robe. “Seyirshi got away. Have you heard anything about him?”
“Not a murmur. You?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Singer, you spent some weeks with him, ’splitting. What do you think, is he going after Voallts again?”
“No.”
“Just no?”
“He has a new project that’s going to require all his attention for a while. He calls it the Fall of Omphalos. He told me about it because he likes the taste of those words.”
“One man?”
“I know what it sounds like. Crazy. But don’t you write him off. I suspect fifty, maybe a hundred years from now, Ginbiryol Seyirshi will be peddling a new Limited Edition and scholars will be prospecting the debris of Omphalos trying to discover what brought them down.”
“Hmm.” Digby dropped his hands on the curved arms of his chair. “Seems to me Omphalos and Ginny deserve each other.”
“Maybe so. Here’s something else to think about. Ginny never forgets an injury.” She turned to the two Dyslaera. “Keep watch on Omphalos, Rohant, you and Miralys. When Omphalos falls, he’ll be back for you.” She straightened. “For all of us.”
“Depressing thought. Let’s end on a high note. Sing for us, Shadow.”
“What?”
“I’ve been jealous of every Bogmakker and traveler who’s heard you perform, Singer. You have your harp and your friend. Sing a dream for us.”